


Initiative

by thornmallow



Category: Tron (1982)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-10
Updated: 2011-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thornmallow/pseuds/thornmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lora makes the first move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Initiative

Lora is almost certain that Alan is a virgin. She imagines that he’s gone on dates before—a few in high school, a few more in college—and that they were fumbling, awkward experiences with perfectly nice girls who were nevertheless hoping for a boyfriend that smiled once in a while. Lora suspects that Alan was born serious; he emerged from the womb and cried only for a second, enough to let the world know that he was fine and everything could proceed as normal.

They do not work in the same department—she spends all of her time in ENCOM’s lower levels, drafting plans for and presently building a laser meant to transform physical matter into digital code. Alan is upstairs, programming in his cubicle, but they both leave as late as their access allows.

She catches him on the stairs occasionally, smiles, says goodnight. He averts his eyes, nods quickly, and hurries down to the exit. When Lora catches up a few seconds later, he’s holding the door open for her. Their eyes meet briefly; they might exchange pleasantries. He’ll warn her about thunderstorms predicted for the following morning or about an accident on the freeway. She will thank him warmly and wave goodbye.

His words are delivered stiffly, as though forming them pains his mouth. At first, Lora thought this was due to her relationship with Kevin Flynn, another programmer, a gregarious, ostentatious man-child who never quite meshed with Alan. But nothing changed after she and Kevin stopped seeing each other; in fact, Alan’s regard became even more awkwardly formal.

A month ago, ENCOM’s sector of downtown L.A. suffered a rash of car thefts. One afternoon Lora read an article over lunch about a woman held at gunpoint in the next parking lot over; the victim, an executive for the financial planning firm beside ENCOM’s offices, also tended to work late. Lora was not a woman given to paranoia. But that night, which did not end until close to ten ‘o clock, she felt a few pangs of apprehension as she gazed out at the rows of cars in the ENCOM lot. Her access had expired several hours ago—once she left, she could not re-enter the building. The parking lot was well-lit and did have a security patrol, but the area was half a mile across—an attacker could easily ambush her, take her keys, and force her into the car in the time it would take for the rent-a-cop to reach her.

She was a slim, fine-boned woman, with a small frame and very little muscle mass. Overpowering her even without a weapon was a trivial task. Thinking of these facts, she lingered in the doorway for a few minutes, scanning for the patrol car. Perhaps if she calculated its circuit around the lot and then timed her own movements to coincide with its proximity to her vehicle—

“I can walk you,” Alan said. He had appeared behind her at some point in her thought process, waiting a moment for her to clear the threshold before speaking. “If you like.”

She could take care of herself, she wanted to retort, which was true in every reasonable respect. Being one of the few women in her field—and being better at it than the majority of the men—had inured her to all kinds of trouble. Admittedly, none of the boys who irritated her in graduate school carried guns.

“All right,” she said. “I’m not far.”

She started off and he followed close behind, moving like a sentry, alert and assured. He kept his eyes straight ahead, looking not at ther but around her, his lips thinned into a tight frown. Alan was a tall man, lean but not skinny, with a strong jaw and a Greek nose that gave him a sharp, regal profile—an effect only slightly diminished by his glasses.

Lora considered him as they walked together; he was so thoroughly focused on threat assessment that he didn’t seem to notice her glancing back at him. She stifled laughter; she hadn’t asked for an honor guard, just a deterring presence. She felt charmed that he treated their short journey with such grave importance, as though he were protecting a national treasure instead of a co-worker.

When they reached her car—a white, sensible Civic—she fished out her keys and said, “Thanks, Alan. See you tomorrow?”

He finally dropped his eyes to hers. Smiling weakly, he said, “Yeah. Definitely.”

They had maintained that arrangement ever since.

Lora tries to catch him in other places, but he’s never in the cafeteria or the halls. She thinks to ask Flynn about Alan’s habits, but he is similarly elusive lately—and when they do talk, it’s clear that Flynn’s mind is a million miles away. She figures it’s a good thing, as she doesn’t want to Flynn to get ideas. Their breakup was amiable and she harbors an exasperated fondness for him still, but Kevin Flynn was nothing if not a constantly boiling cauldron of ideas—some of them less savory than others.

Lora sits at her terminal, her own mind alternating between the strings of equations on the screen and her notions of Alan Bradley’s sexual history. She reaches for her coffee (black, no sugar or cream) and finds it empty.

Dr. Gibbs, her team leader, pores over the laser specs at the table behind her. He’s absorbed in the numbers, muttering to himself and making notes here and there.

“I’m going upstairs for a minute,” Lora tells him, raising her mug. He nods absentmindedly, registering the words but not caring the least for their meaning.

Lora strides briskly down the rows of the laser bay labyrinth, waving to the other scientists roaming among the equipment, passing the break room and its full, freshly brewed pot of coffee. Upstairs, she wends her way through another maze of programmers’ cubicles; she’s led to Alan’s by the scent and sound of popping corn kernels.

“Hey,” she says, leaning against one wall of his cell. “Don’t suppose you know where a girl can get a refill around here?” She grins brightly. “We’re all out down in the lab.”

Alan visibly stiffens when he hears her voice. He was hunched over his computer, typing rapidly, and Lora can tell that she’s thrown off his groove. She finds this adorable.

Alan clears his throat and says, “Um, down there, to the left.” He gestures, doesn’t make eye contact. “Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Lora says. She turns as if to go, and then leans back, adding slyly, “Could you possibly do me one more favor?”

He looks at her directly, his fingers completely still on the keyboard. “Of course, Dr. Baines.”

“Let me take you to dinner,” she says.

A blush starts at the base of Alan’s throat and quickly floods his cheeks. She inclines her head to one side, expectant.

“I think,” he replies, his tone admirably measured, “I can manage that.”

“And call me Lora,” she says.

He returns her smile then, and it lights up his face so handsomely that Lora’s afraid she will blush, too. She leaves in earnest before that can happen, heading back down to the laser bay with an empty coffee mug clutched in her hand.

—

 _you’re so quiet_

 _but it doesn’t faze me_

 _you’re on time_

 _you move so fast, makes me feel lazy_

 _let’s join forces_

 _we’ve got our guns & horses …_


End file.
